He Battered Me, Choked His Son, Woman Testifies

November 25, 1994|by TYRA BRADEN, The Morning Call

A woman testified tearfully Wednesday that her former live-in boyfriend battered her face and choked and threatened to shoot to death his 3-year-old son during a fit of rage at a Franklin Township home.

And despite claims by a defense lawyer that the woman may have made up the tale, Bruce Hoffman, 24, of 200 Held St. remains jailed on seven criminal charges. District Justice Bruce Appleton of Palmerton sent the charges to Carbon County Court after Wednesday's preliminary hearing.

Appleton refused to reduce Hoffman's $75,000 bail. Hoffman, who is set for a pretrial conference Jan. 24, must post $7,500 to be released. He is charged with two counts each of simple and aggravated assault and one count each of terroristic threats, endangering the welfare of a child and recklessly endangering another person.

District Attorney Gary F. Dobias is prosecuting the case. Public Defender George T. Dydynsky represents Hoffman. Dobias called the alleged attack typical of "the tragedy of domestic violence," while Dydynsky argued that the girlfriend had told some people that she'd been hurt in a car crash and others that she had fallen down a flight of steps.

Stacy Davidson testified that she lied to friends and family and failed to summon police for a week because she was afraid of Hoffman. "Bruce wouldn't let me leave," she said, "he told me, `I'll hunt you down and kill you.'"

She said that she and Hoffman and Hoffman's son Zachery had lived together for about nine months at the Held Street home. She said Hoffman on Nov. 12 came home about 2 or 2:30 a.m., drunk and carrying two 40-ounce bottles of beer. Davidson said Hoffman wanted to go out again "and get in a fight. He wanted to beat somebody up."

Davidson said she wanted Hoffman to stay home, so she took the bottles from him and locked herself in the bathroom so she could pour the beer down the drain. She said she told Hoffman that if he went out again and fought, he would risk losing his little boy.

Hoffman, she said, broke down the bathroom door. "He wanted the beer," she said. "He was screaming and yelling at me: `You're not my wife. You don't own me.'"

Then, she said, he hit her in the mouth, knocking three teeth loose and cutting her mouth. "There was a lot of blood," Davidson said.

Davidson said she talked on the telephone with the man with whom Hoffman had been out earlier. During the conversation, she said, Hoffman said to her, "Don't you tell him I hit you. Don't you tell him."

When Davidson got off the phone, she said, the friend called back and talked to Hoffman. Davidson said she heard Hoffman tell him, "I didn't hit her, damn it. I didn't hit her."

Zachery, Davidson said, woke up and came out of his room. She said the boy began crying when he saw the blood on her face and shirt. Davidson said she whispered to Hoffman, "You're gonna go to jail for this."

Hoffman, she said, pulled the telephone apart, grabbed his son and said, "I'll kill him before I give him up. I'm gonna kill him. I'd rather see him dead. No, better yet, I'm gonna blow his head off, and mine."

Davidson said Hoffman put his hands around the boy's neck and choked him. When he let go, she said, Zachery asked, "Why you want to kill me, daddy?"

The boy, Davidson said, ran into a bedroom. She said Hoffman punched her in the eye, knocked her onto the bed, then bit her left foot. "He told me that nobody was going to take his son away," she testified. "He said if I told anybody, he'd kill me. ... He said he'd rather see Zack dead than lose him."

Davidson, under questioning by Dydynsky, said she was upset because Hoffman had gone out Nov. 12 and she suspected that he was seeing another woman. She said Hoffman had gone out again Nov. 18 and didn't come home until about 3:30 a.m. Nov. 19. Dydynsky asked Davidson if she was still upset with Hoffman Nov. 19.

"No," she said. "I got over that."

Davidson said she agreed to report the attack Nov. 19 when her brother, who did not believe that she had been injured in a fall, picked her up about 9:45 a.m. Nov. 19 to take her to work.

Dydynsky asked Appleton to throw out the charges. He said that because Davidson stayed with Hoffman for a week after the alleged attack, "her conduct belies her testimony." Dydynsky said Davidson ate with, slept with and visited family with Hoffman for a week after the alleged attack. She "changed her story," he said, "only after being irritated" that Hoffman stayed out late.

"I think the witness is inherently unbelievable," Dydynsky said. "Here is a witness who has given three different stories."

Dobias, however, said that Davidson "suffered a brutal, violent beating."

When Appleton denied Dydynsky's request, Dydynsky said he wanted Zachery to testify. Dobias objected, but Appleton allowed the boy to be questioned. After several minutes, however, Appleton ruled that the child was an incompetent witness, because he nodded yes, then no, at most questions.